Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/28

22 the Divine Love; but in point of intensity, amplitude and power, it is as the feeble glimmer of the fire-fly compared with the splendor of the noon-day sun. God's love, too, is altogether unselfish in its nature. It is the love of others out of itself. It is infinitely expansive, diffusive, communicative. Its ceaseless desire is to impart itself and its delights to others. Such is the unchangeable nature of true love; for it all comes from God. It never seeks its own, never thinks of itself. Its glory and its delight is to communicate itself with all its joys, without a thought of recompense. In doing good and blessing others, it finds its abundant reward. And of this it never wearies any more than the sun wearies of imparting light and heat to revolving worlds. It was from the love of imparting his own life, and so making other creatures happy, that God created man to be an image of Himself and a finite receptacle of his love. For the great end in creation was a heaven of angels from the human race;—a host of intelligent and rational beings, bright and joyous, and forever growing brighter and more joyous, in the reception and exercise of the Creator's love. And this beneficent end He has pursued with infinite wisdom and undiminished ardor from the beginning until now. He has followed our race through all